Harley

Harley woke up in her own bed. The white comforter had been pulled up tight to her neck, creating a bubble of warmth. Across it, another light blue blanket covered her feet to keep them warm.

"You're awake." Bailey sat next to the bed, reading one of Harley's worn romance novels.

She put a hand to her forehead and pushed the blankets down to her waist. The heat gathered under the blankets was nice, but causing her to sweat. "What happened?"

Bailey snorted. "They want me to ask you that."

It was night outside. Wind rushed against the side of the house, strong enough to rustle the trees. Inside, the lamp on the white nightstand next to her bed cast a dim, cozy light throughout the room. "Have I been asleep all day?"

"Pretty much. Will didn't want any of us to wake you."

Will. "Where is he?"

Bailey gave her a sad look. "Out with some of the guys from the patrol team. They're still searching."

The worry closed her throat enough that it took her a moment to respond. "How...long?"

Her friend glanced down at her watch. "Maybe four hours."

"He's not...he's not coming back, is he?"

They wouldn't know what happened to Ben. No one would have a clue whether he was alive or dead. Or if he'd already been killed.

And she had to live with that.

Bailey must've seen the absolute desolation on her face because she gripped Harley's hand tight between hers. "Alpha Mark can feel him through the bond. It's extremely faint because of distance, but he's there."

Harley blinked up at the ceiling. Don't do it. Don't cry. "I should've grabbed him. I could've dragged him to the road and--"

"Dragged him?"

It hurt--the words felt heavy as she upchucked them--but slowly she spilled the details of what had happened earlier in her parent's meadow. Bailey followed along, quiet as the story unfolded.

When it was over Bailey was furious. She poked a finger in Harley's direction. "You are not to blame for this. Do you hear me? There's no way you, a latent, could have carried Ben to the car and gotten both of you out safely."

A latent. If she'd been a shifted wolf, the beast would have been able to lend her enough strength to save Ben. Instead, her pathetic lack of a wolf had left her helpless. Her latency could have signed Ben's death warrant.

"I can see what you're thinking, Harley. And you can't put that on yourself. You can't put that on your conscience. It'll tear you apart."

She pulled her hand from Bailey's warm grip and covered her face. "I don't understand how this happened. We were fine--everything was starting to get better."

"The important thing is that the pack will not let this drop. We are all going to search for Ben, and we are going to tear apart the people who've dared to mess with our family."

Hearing Bailey reference each member of the pack as a family set it in stone. The Willow Creek pack was a family. They supported each other, gave each other the love and comfort and familial solidarity as needed.

"We will find Ben, darlin'. And heaven help anyone who gets in our way."

~

Bailey was nice enough to sit with Harley for a while, at least long enough for her to fall back asleep. When she woke up the second time, it was because someone sat on the bed next to her and smoothed a hand over her hair. She opened her eyes.

Sunlight streamed in through the window. The natural light, combined with the white theme of her room, made everything seem brighter. Newer. The books stacked on her nightstand and along the top of her dresser looked taller, some of the volumes more stressed. But it was the blankness of everything else that shouted at her. The frame on the wall depicted a generic landscape--the photography copyright symbol right on the corner--that hadn't been switched out yet. The throw pillows along her window seat hadn't been touched and the walls were horribly, pathetically blank.

She wondered what Ben's room looked like. And the thought of the posters along his wall, the frames that most likely overtook his dresser, or an old alarm clock with the word snooze half wiped off, made her lungs shrink.

"Hey," Will said softly. He gave her a half-smile. "How do you feel?"

Still tired. Still to blame. "Fine."

He shot her a look that said, nice try, but I see the war in your eyes. Yet he let it go and took her hand in his. She squeezed his, liking the feel of his warm, course grip surrounding hers.

"They took him," Harley said. She waited for him to deny it, waited for him to correct her.

Instead his lips formed into a line. A confirmation.

"You're not going to let them go, right?" She sat up and leaned forward, making sure he heard every word. "We can't just let him be--" her voice broke, cutting off the end of her sentence. Taken. The unspoken word dangled between them.

"Trackers are readying to go out in an hour or so. They'll find him. Then we bring him home." He made it sound simple. As if Ben had been a set of keys she'd lost or a misplaced book, and getting him back would be as easy as picking him back up and returning him to his shelf.

But they'd have no idea who took Ben. Or what they'd find when they tracked him.

Another thought occurred to her then and it made her stomach sour. "You're going with, aren't you?"

He wouldn't meet her eyes. A beat passed, then, "not right away. I'll be taking up the rear. I wanted...I wanted to make sure you'd be okay and settled before I left."

Harley's fingers locked around his arm. "You have to get him back, Will. You have to."

Will cupped her face between hot palms. "I will, Harley," he said, "and when I get back, we will have some things to discuss. I don't think it was a coincidence that the same meadow was attacked. Things like that don't just happen."

She couldn't think about it. The implications of it all, the idea that maybe, maybe her family had been maliciously seeked out-- "Who will be guarding your back?"

"People I trust. People I know who would give up their lives for me as I would for them." He didn't say it, but Harley heard pack loud and clear. Because that's what pack was. People willing to give their lives for other members.

Family. Pack was family.

"I'm leaving Cam here," Will said, "I need you to look after him. Keep him safe."

Anything. She'd have done anything he'd ask her to. She couldn't go with them to retrieve Ben, but by God, she'd do anything and everything else they needed her to. "I will."

"Good. Now we have just one more issue--" A loud howl sounded from outside, as if it were below her window. She looked at Will in alarm, but he only laughed at her expression. "Want to tell me why that rogue wolf won't stop guarding your window?"

~

They stepped through the sliding glass to the expansive green backyard. The turquoise pool glittered in the already hot morning sun and if it were another time, if she didn't have the life she did, she wondered if her summers would be spent by the poolside soaking up rays. She would have liked to have summer be a time of relaxation, of carefree hangouts and unending hot dogs on the grill.

Though the sun was strong this morning, the wind blowing from the east did a wonderful job combating the humidity saturating the air. The emerald leaves on the trees swished against each other as the wind pushed them west. On the patio, black iron chairs rested around a glass table, some still pulled half-out, as if someone had just vacated them and planned on coming back.

Further down, below where her window rested, that rogue wolf stared at them.

His yellow-green eyes met hers and he cocked his head like he didn't quite understand why she was here.

She didn't understand why he was here. Why didn't he let her get taken too? Why was he near the meadow in the first place? How did he sneak past the patrols?

Will must've heard her thoughts because in a low tone he said, "He snuck past the patrols--something that doesn't happen often. With such a large territory, we've had to cut some corners here and there over the years. Some areas are less patrolled than others."

"The meadow?"

He nodded, his eyes never leaving the seemingly calm wolf who'd sat down in the gentle grass. "Ever since the attack, we've had to put our resources to really good use and focus on protecting the center of the territory as best as possible. We didn't want a reenactment of what happened thirteen years ago. So we decided to cut the meadow from most, if not all, patrols. Ben knew not to go there. He knew Alpha Mark doesn't want anyone hanging around that area where they can't be protected.

"But this guy--" Will jerked his chin at the wolf. "--should've been picked up by the patrols. That's three times he's jumped us."

Harley took in the wolf. He was content there to lay, his fur swaying gently in the breeze. He just...waited. Observed. "Why is he still here?" She didn't know pack rules as well as others but shouldn't the pack have kicked him out or something?

Will shifted on his feet, his arm tracing hers. "You're one of our own, Harley. A pack keeps their members safe. What happened at the meadow...we couldn't keep you safe," his lips pressed into a line, and it took him a moment before he continued, "this guy did what we were supposed to. We won't forget that."

For some reason, Harley thought she heard an unspoken I won't forget that. But it was overshadowed by something else Will had said. You're one of our own.

You're one of our own.

She bit down the ball of emotions crawling up her throat until it ached. In front of her, the wolf whined.

"He stays as long as he doesn't cause any trouble." Will said.

"And if he does?" She asked, but she knew the answer. Wolves don't get kicked out for invading territory--they get killed.

Will tugged at her hand and threaded his fingers through hers. The warmth surrounding her hand made her feel attached. Like maybe, somehow, she wasn't floating along the surface of the world, adrift, but instead had found a connection to ground her.

Ahead of her, she swore the wolf smiled.